Introductory Course to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and Regional Instruments on Hazardous Wastes

Course overview

Awakening environmental awareness and a corresponding tightening of environmental regulations in the industrialized world in the 1970s and 1980s led to increasing public resistance to the dumping of hazardous wastes – and to an escalation of disposal costs. This in turn led some operators to seek cheap disposal options for hazardous wastes in the developing world. It was against this background that the Basel Convention was negotiated in the late 1980s. Its thrust at the time of its adoption was to combat “toxic trade,” as it was termed. The Convention entered into force in 1992. This course will introduce you to the history of the Basel Convention and how it works to regulate the movement and disposal of hazardous and other wastes across international boundaries.

Learning Objectives

• Describe the need for and origins of the Basel Convention;
• Explain the mechanisms through which the Convention regulates transboundary movements of hazardous and other wastes.